A GALLANT DEFENCE.

It is not to be supposed that so momentous a decision as that mentioned
at the close of the last chapter could be arrived at without bringing
the occupants of the hacienda face to face with many anxieties, one of
the most serious of which was, undoubtedly, the question whether the
ammunition for which they had sent would arrive ere the appearance upon
the scene of General Valeriano y Nicolan Weyler, with his devastating
army of sixty thousand men. If it did, all might possibly be well; but
if it did not--well, in that case disaster was practically certain. For
nearly a week they hung painfully upon the tenterhooks of suspense,
waiting for news; and the only news which reached them was to the effect
that the new Capitan-General, with characteristic vigour, had issued the
most rigorous instructions for a vigilant patrol of the entire coast
line of the island to be maintained, with the express object of
preventing any further landing of munitions of war of any description
whatsoever, the obvious conclusion at which he had arrived being that if
such supplies could be effectually stopped the rebellion must eventually
be starved out of existence for want of them. But, after a long week of
keenest anxiety, intelligence arrived that Milsom had succeeded in
eluding the _guardacostas_, and had landed his cargo in a small cove
under the lee of San Domingo Point, on the south coast; and that the
moiety of that cargo asked for by Don Hermoso was even then well on its
way to the estate. The next day it arrived, and was safely stored, to
the great relief of the defenders, who now found themselves possessed of
a supply of ammunition ample enough to enable them, with care, to
withstand a siege of a month's duration, if need be; while they doubted
very much whether General Weyler would be disposed to devote even half
that amount of time to their subjugation.

But the ammunition came to hand only just in the nick of time: for on
the very day of its arrival the anxious watchers became aware of a faint
odour of burning on the breeze; and when at length darkness closed down
upon them, the sky to the eastward glowed red, showing that Weyler and
his destroyers were at hand. With the dawn the smell of burning became
more pronounced; the hitherto crystalline clearness of the air was seen
to be dimmed by a thin veil of brownish-blue vapour; and the lookout in
his eyrie far up the mountain-side signalled that flames an